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In the last article I talked about quantity social media relationships; in this article, I will talk about quality relationships on social media. Now that you started the right networks online, how do you maintain and grow them?

My story with Mr. James (and many others) continues till today. Though I am no more in Uganda, we keep greeting each other and inquire about each other. I keep writing articles on organization development that could help him grow his business; So doing, there is room to move forward in our partnership.

There are 2 major things to do in other to maintain and grow true professional relationships on social media:

Identify the relationship starters. What did you do to kick start those online connections? You must invest 80% of your time in those things you did at the beginning of those networks. Read the former article to refresh yourself on what you could do to start true friendships on social media.

Multiply them and innovate. Now that you identified what worked to start your online connections, multiply those actions and add new ideas. This could take only 20% of your time online because creativity will come from the routine of interacting with your connections.

For example, you could use events like professional anniversary or promotion or birthday celebration to stay connected with your friends. You could also inquire about the needs of your contacts through a survey and then create valuable services for them. Take time to like, comment on your contacts posts; it’s an excellent way to show interest on their behalf.

If you are in the writing business, the best advice is to keep writing. Continue to provide updated information for personal, community and organizational development. Furthermore, allow your online relationships to give their feedback on your contents. Without realizing, they will become participants in your next writing project; and what you will write shall empower them and make them feel more secure with you.

Let me know how you maintain and grow your relationships online. Leave a comment bellow and don’t forget to share this article with your friends.

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I discovered the Experiential Learning Cycle, also called ELC, five years ago during a communications trainer workshop. The approach is well known in the education world to help learners and trainers drive objectives results from their experiences. It’s one of the most secure way for autonomous learning where you train others how to learn.

When you are interested in bringing something new in your environment or you dream of solving personal or organizational problems, the ELC could the best method to organize your ideas. When it comes to solutions writing, the ECL is also a tool you can make a good use of. It’s simple and with practice, you master it very easily.

Image credit: Tesol

I noticed that I write easily these last days when I start with a concrete experience I went through. I realised that words flow easily and I find myself writing more than the planned time. This is simply because I am applying the ELC in my writing process. This how it works:

The concrete experience is the activity phase of the actions done. You did something or participated actively or passively to an event. You took a decision to start a new business, a blog, a personal relationship or anything that requires actions. It’s the beginning of your learning journey. From the action to produce a result, you can develop an incredible amount of knowledge and resources for you and others.

Observation. Here you share what happened. you actually write in detail what you saw , heard, smelt, tasted or touched and how you felt about it ; You put emotions and sentiment in everything that took place. You could go further and number the people that were present and describe each one of them with the maximum of precision you can.

Interpretation. At this stage, you realize that your experience produced some results. The most important here is to understand the impact of those results on your goals or purpose. Results are meaningless unless you give interpretation to them. This step lead you to draw conclusions that form a new paradigm: It’s called generalization. You become a solution provider expert.

Analysis. Now you need to plan how to make maximum use of the new lessons you just created to carry your next action. This action will lead you to better results and will show that you are improving in your skills, knowledge and attitudes.

I started my blog seed4future.com on January 2016. This means I had to produce readable contents for an audience. I also had to choose my audience.

I felt very excited to start my own social business. And my joy increases when I saw my audience growing. But I felt frustrated that people were not making comment on my blog and I started worrying what was wrong with my contents.

I understood that for people to make comment , I have to add a ” call to action” at the end of my articles.

The coming articles all had “call to actions”. I had some few comment and decided to do it more and more. I realized that I generate more leads when I include ” call to action” on socio media. LinkedIn for example generates more comments than I could imagine.

Do you see how simple but methodic the ELC could make you write? I summarized each step to facilitate your integration of the ELC. I just generated 144 words content by following the ELC procedure; If I add more informations, I could easily write a 700 words article. This is excellent for new writers who lack words to express their ideas or, for writers in search for a guideline to canalize their inspiration.

Now It’s you turn to create your own content by applying the ELC. Just fill the table below with simple statement corresponding to the ELC approach.

Action

Observation

Interpretation

Analysis

I would like to hear from you to know which writing procedure you use for your blogposts.

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Do you remember the last time you overcome giving up or wanting to give up? I remember it very well: it was during a running session. The hit was so brutal I taught I should have better stay home; adding the pain factor because I added extra miles to my normal running routine, I really wanted to stop and walk back home.

While the idea of stopping crossed my mind, I kept telling myself “Keep running…you could slow down but keep moving forward…do not stop! How fast you go is less important than how safe you reach home running”. As I did it, I kept moving forward until finally, I reached home…alive… and… ready for fitness exercises.

The next running session, I could obviously notice that I was stronger and more motivated. I did not realize that I went far ahead of the point I decided to reach before turning back home. It’s at that time I performed better than ever before and I was ready to cross the next limits.

Watch the following video of Usain Bolt and how he became the fastest man in the world after 13 years of perseverance : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INQ14zXQGoU.

There is a strong relationship between the body and the mind. Most psychologists affirm that everything starts in the mind and then affects our body. They also affirm that your emotional intelligence does not make the difference if you are developing a skill for a specific domain.This simply means that, if you learn not to give up when running, your subconscious register the ability to persevere and will deploy it in any other area of your life when you will face adversities: it becomes your character.

You can use any activity you are passionate about to develop perseverance. Just pick what you like and do it whatever circumstances and challenges. The advantage with running or physical activities is that you see the reward practically, and you are still being astonished on what you could achieve with your body.

Keep writing! Keep preparing for that exam! Keep training for that test! Keep listening to motivational podcasts! Keep reading other successful people in your area!